A LIKELY STORY: GUNS AND RACE BIG FACTORS IN CRIME IN AMERICA

Amid a literal mountain of monotonous mail, once in a while I get something I think is of interest to the public. That happened recently when the American Bar Association's annual booklet, "Facts About the Criminal Justice System," arrived.

I pass the information along to you, at no additional cost.

Less crime?

Crime in America is decreasing. The Bureau of Justice Statistics announced in 1996 that the number of violent crimes fell more than nine percent in 1995 -- dropping from 10.9 million in 1994 to 9.9 million in 1995.

From what I know, this interrupted an upward trend that began in the mid-1980s.

The FBI also reported that the crime rate per 100,000 persons had dropped by 2 percent from 1994 and violent crime by 2 percent. The rates of murder, forcible rape and robbery showed the biggest drops.

By the way, juveniles and minorities are victims of violent crime more than other segments of the population.

That must be comforting to parents and people of color.

The race factor

Speaking of color, since there seems to be a racial bias in every other American system, you might not be surprised to learn that the criminal justice system is no different.

Minorities who are arrested are imprisoned more than non-minority arrestees, and comprise more than half of the state prison population.

The most recent statistics reveal that African-Americans are arrested and incarcerated for drug use at a much higher rate than can be accounted for by their rate of drug use.

African-Americans, who comprise only 12 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, constitute some 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of those convicted of possession, and 74 percent of those sentenced to prison for possession.

Prisons

Between 1990 and 1993, the correctional population increased by 12 percent, to 4.9 million. To me, this means more people who are arrested are being incarcerated because even when adult arrests are stable, the number of people thrown in the pokey continues to increase significantly.

And prison capacity isn't even beginning to keep up with the growth in prison population. Although state spending for corrections is increasing at extremely high rates -- faster than any other area of state expenditures -- capacity is growing more slowly than the growth of the number of prisons.

An interesting side note: The U.S. has the second highest rate of incarceration in the world, just slightly lower than Russia's.

Guns a contributing factor?

The question I have is, What impact do handguns have on America's crime problem. The U.S. has the most heavily armed citizenry in the world. It is estimated that some 223 million guns are available to the general public, and that roughly 135,000 children carry guns to school each day.

Considering that nearly three-quarters of all homicides are by firearms, that gun deaths in the U.S. number about 40,000 each year and that more than 800,000 crimes are commited with guns, I wonder what the crime statistics in a world without handguns would look like.

And finally, a word

from our sponsors

Total criminal justice expenditures were over $74 billion in 1990. More than three-quarters of this was for police protection and corrections.

Scott Moyers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.